Matt Harmon: Recorded live on December 12th, 2025 from the studio of WMCX 88.9 of the campus of Monmouth University. It's episode number four of the monthly podcast series, Monmouth Matters, with an inside perspective from university president, Dr. Patrick Lahey. This is faculty member Matt Harmon. Thanks for your support, continued listening. Happy holidays from all of us at Monmouth Matters. Last Friday of the fall semester, 2025, and we are back here on WMCX. It is Monmouth Matters episode number four. Good to be with University President Dr. Patrick Leahy. I'm faculty member Matt Horman. Our production crew today, Chloe Goss, John Grano, and Frank Horley. We're missing Nick Giantonio, who got out of Dodge early. He must be done. He had the good final exam schedule, couple of days, and then he was able to get out of here. Great to be here to kind of wrap up the academic year per se, 2025 with a whole nother semester obviously to go. And we're going to have some fun here today. We're going to do kind of a year in review, beginning part of the show, and then we will have our student production crew ask our university president some questions about things in and around campus. President Lay, good to see you. Patrick Leahy: Should I be worried about that last segment? Matt Harmon: Extremely Patrick Leahy: Concerned. Extremely concerned. I'm waiting for which one. Hey, your grades are not in yet. Just remember that when the questions come, okay? And Matt Harmon: Chloe is graduating, so we could certainly hold that against her if absolutely need be. Great to be back here and kind of wrap up the calendar year, not necessarily the academic year with the spring semester still upon us, but wanted to spend some time here today picking up in some ways where we left off our November episode, which was just a couple of weeks ago. We wanted to squeeze this one in before the end of the year, and next week just too busy between exams wrapping up and grading and students on different schedules. So this was a perfect day for us to do it. The final exam period, which is now up and going, in a lot of ways, ends the academic semester and I love that it kicks off the holiday period, right? Yeah. You come back from Thanksgiving break, couple weeks of class, week of finals, and then you're right into another holiday break, and it goes so fast. And I know we said this in our November show, it seemed like the semester just started and it seemed like we were just talking about Thanksgiving and now we're right on top of the Christmas Patrick Leahy: Holiday. Yeah. I mean, the schedule is a great schedule. Like most universities, we wrap up before the holidays, but some schools don't. Their semester doesn't finish until January and then do their exam periods at that point. I've always thought it best to finish out this semester and then give the students a couple of three week break there at the winter after the semester wraps up before the next one begins. Although you know this year for the second year in a row, we'll have a increasingly robust winter session as well. So we'll give some opportunities for students who want to use that three week break to fit in another class to do so. And I'm really grateful to our faculty members who are designing courses to fit within admittedly a very narrow window. But that starts here at the first of the year as well. Matt Harmon: Actually, let's talk about that because last year, kind of a pilot program with winter session, this again, a continuation of that and why it's important. Now, I hate using this phrase, but I will say it. When I went to school here, which was decades ago now at this point, we always had a winter session. And there's a lot of schools that do that to allow students the opportunity catch up on a credit. That would be number one, get ahead on a credit, number two, or in some cases, squeeze in potentially like an internship that they might be doing over the course of the winter break, which makes so much sense. Patrick Leahy: Exactly. I think you just hit it, Matt. Two things. One is from a pure academic perspective, if you want to get that credit or catch up and stay on track to graduate, that's a wonderful thing. It's purely optional. So if you don't want to take a winter session course, you certainly are not obligated to do so. But the other is over time, we hope that some new innovative programming emerges. Study trips abroad, perhaps, or elsewhere around the country, specific internship opportunities or shadowing opportunities with alumni for a concerted period of times to give students an idea what certain industries are like. That kind of programming is developing over this admittedly short period of time as well. So we think between the two of those, more classes and more sort of interesting experiential opportunities, that that will become a three week period where there's real value. And if you choose to just take it to relax or to go home and work, some of our students go home and work for a few weeks. I totally respect that and it's not necessary to take the winter session, but we want to make that available. It's part of my goal to be a 12 month university. You've heard me say that maybe before, that I want to serve students every month of the year. We have a very robust summer schedule. In fact, five sessions that we offer programming in the summer. We just didn't want this three week dead period in the winter to go without trying to add some value. Matt Harmon: Unused. Patrick Leahy: Unused. Unused. Exactly. Matt Harmon: This will be potentially part of a strategic plan initiative. Is that going to be in the new strategic plan? Patrick Leahy: It might if one of our faculty member representatives of the strategic plan, whom I know, well, ensures that it's part of the strategic plan, Matt. No pressure. No Matt Harmon: Pressure. That strategic plan is something that we did mention in the November meeting. And yes, I am part of the strategic plan committee as a representative of faculty council and the overall faculty. We met last week. We're going to have another meeting coming up next week, and you spoke to us as a committee last week, and I'm not sharing any major secrets. If you went on the Monmouth University website and looked up Monmouth University's strategic plan, it's there for anybody to see. It's not a secret document, which I think most people would think, oh, it's hard to find. Anybody could go on and take a look at it. And I think what- Patrick Leahy: Including our competitors. Matt Harmon: Including our competitors, for sure. Yeah. And I think what you said to the committee last week, if you don't mind me sharing this, is we are not in some ways trying to reinvent the wheel, right? The university is in a good place financially, academically. Middle states is something we've talked about. We've talked about the financial review that's taken place over the course of the last year. So the university is in a good spot. If you looked at the strategic plan objectives that's listed right now, how can we maybe enhance or tweak those rather than come up with a brand new plan? Is that fair to say? Patrick Leahy: That's fair. I would say that we're catching the university right now with a lot of positive momentum. So why would you blow that up right now and start all over again? In my opinion, it is not necessary. We have an overarching goal, as we've talked about here before, to be a bonafide national leader at integrating excellence and access. And we've even developed models to prove that we are a national leader at integrating excellence and access. That is to be the highest ranked institution, a measure of excellence with our access measures, in particular students here on Pell Grants and first generation students and the like measure of course of access. We want to be the highest ranked with our access measures of, frankly, all private schools across the country. We used to segment that even further, but because we're making such good progress, we've just opened it up and said, among all private schools across the country, we're going to be identifying those schools that are ranked higher than we are, but also have 40% of their students here on Pell Grants. And I say that with some confidence because there aren't many. There may be two or three only, and they'd be the ones we'd continue to chase. So if you're making that kind of momentum, and we'll talk a little bit more in our end of the year review, why upset that entirely? I'm not saying we don't have work to do. I'm not saying we don't have things we need to improve. I'm not saying that, but generally speaking, we're making really good progress. I'd like to continue that momentum for another five years, at which point after 10 years, you really need to start from scratch again and reimagine where you want the university to go. Matt Harmon: When you say you want Monmouth to be ... And we have talked about this for, again, this is fifth year of doing the podcast together. You have said, want Monmouth to be recognized nationally on so many levels. And you said it used to be a little bit more segmented, maybe the best private school in New Jersey, then in the Northeast, then on the East Coast. And when you say nationally, when you speak to people about Monmouth and you travel and, "Hey, who is this? I'm university president, Dr. Patrick Leahy at Monmouth University, New Jersey." What do people know about Monmouth where you are confident in saying we can be a national leader in certain things? I mean, Patrick Leahy: As I meet people from California and Texas, I mean, let's be honest, unless they follow higher ed, they don't know us that well. And I'm not embarrassed by the fact that they don't know us. We typically recruit our students up and down the East Coast. So if I wade into Philly and nobody knows who we are, that's a problem.That's increasingly less of a problem. And we have evidence to suggest that our brand is getting much better recognized up and down the East Coast. Part of the reason, as you know, that we joined the CAA was to be able to play in markets up and down the East Coast. But when they ask me who we are, I use that same language. I said, "We're this really first class private institution. Whether you've heard about us or not to this point, you will because we're a bonafide national leader at integrating excellence and access. And we have all these different things that we're doing in order to shine a spotlight on it, like joining a bigger, broader athletic conference and developing the Bruce Springsteen Center for American Music and now 20 years of continued reinvestment in our Urban Coast Institute to partners with some of the finest oceographic institutes all over the country. So things that we do to try to make sure that our institution is recognized by the pundits and the pundits are the rankings. Whether we like it or not, they're the rankings and our trajectory over the last 20 years. And I'm proud to say, if I may be personal for a minute, the last six years since I've been here have been a steady increase without interruption up those rankings. Matt Harmon: Do you still consider, and this is something in the COVID world that existed and I think probably still exists today, though so many of the measuring sticks are Monmouth is in a good place. To your point, still have work to do, still things to continue to develop and work on and be part of. The challenges of higher education from an academic level, is it still a concern or maybe should I say, is it always going to be a concern? Hey, at a private university, you need to have students in order to make sure the place is running. So that competitive world of where Monmouth is getting students from, that will probably always cause you a sleepless night here or there, but maybe a little less over the course of the last year or so Patrick Leahy: Or no? No, probably not. Probably not. Only because it's so important to us. We are a tuition-driven institution. Our mission is to serve students and we want to serve as many of them as our infrastructure allows. I mean, we're somewhat constrained on how much we could grow our sheer numbers. So what we focused on is just continuing to grow the quality of the students that we're able to attract here at Monmouth. That will always be the number one concern because the residual effects of that are financial pressures and investments we're able to make are not able to make. You've heard me say this, that way back pre-pandemic, I made an address to the campus community after being here for five or six months. So this was my assessment of the university as the new president. And it was all about the changing and declining demographics and how competitive it's going to get to recruit students. Did not talk about the pandemic, did not talk about social justice issues, did not talk about federal policy changes, did not talk about any of those challenges that have arisen since then. It's all about fundamentally, can we, in a very competitive market, make Monmouth attractive enough to enroll the five to 6,000 students that we want, and that is a continuing challenge. I like our relative position, but that will be a continuing challenge. Matt Harmon: Let's look at, from our November episode till today, what has been going on in and around campus gala at the Great Hall. Patrick Leahy: Fantastic. Yep. It was a full house, sold out, great numbers, high energy, just an opportunity to recognize Maryanne Hess. And for anyone who has any familiarity with Monmouth, you know Maryanne Hess, whether you recognize it or not, because every time you go to Hess field for a soccer game, that's Maryanne Hess's generosity on display or walk through our north campus and see Hess Hall. She's been a member of our board for 20 some years, just one of the individuals who helped make us who we are. Matt Harmon: When you think of it on some levels, how important is it for you ... Actually, so we're on one. Yeah, we hit two if you need to do that. How important is it for you to be able to recognize people like Marianne Hess that are so important to the development of this university? Patrick Leahy: The progress we've made, maybe we'll talk about the year in review here in a second, but the progress we've made depends on legions and legions of people. The least of it is the president. It's the staff here, the faculty members that we have, the board of trustees that we've assembled, and the donors who make things happen that might not otherwise happen. So a university to advance takes legions and legions of people. Among those legions of people, there are leaders and it just ... I believe in the ... Actually, I was the one who created the president's medal five years ago. I believe that there are certain people that need to be properly and formally recognized for that lifetime of commitment to the place. And it's just the right thing to do to demonstrate publicly our appreciation. And so Maryanne Hess was just the fourth recipient of the President's Medal. Matt Harmon: Good segue when you say recognition, longtime involvement for the university just this past week over the course of the last 24, 36 hours, news from the world of the athletic department, Coach Kevin Callahan has decided to step away and retire as the head football coach. He started the program in 1993. Unfortunately, the season didn't end the way that anyone would have hoped this year, but there is ... And I say this knowing someone would say, "Well, you've known him for that long, and I have, there has been not a better representative of this university spanning three plus decades than Kevin Callahan. He's going to stay on as a special advisor to the athletic department and the football program, longtime assistant, alum, former player, Jeff Gallo is going to take over. There's a press conference today at two o'clock, but obviously without Casey, there is no real football program. And in a world of college athletics that right now is so up in the air and coaches move and you never really know who's going to be on a roster, player, coaches, to have someone provide stability for over 30 years is really an anomaly. Patrick Leahy: Yeah. And on a personal note, I can imagine this is a sentimental time for you, Matt, because you were on his first team. I was. And you've known him since the very beginning and have worked very closely with him. And I suspect for you, it's a little bit of a melancholy time, but that's a measure of who he is as a person. I think a lot of people are feeling that today when the official announcement went out yesterday in the official event today. There are a handful of people who have been at this university as long and has been as impactful as Kevin. Only a handful. I mean, lots of dedicated people have spent their lives here at Monmouth, but for that long a period building something from scratch, affecting that many student athletes' lives, being such a great member of the community, such deep relationships with members of our board and other donors and alumni, can you imagine every single football alum that we have played for Coach Callahan? I mean, it's amazing. And I'll say this later, that if you follow college athletics at all, you know that colleges make these announcement of new head coaches every couple, three, four years. It's happening all the time, as you just pointed out. We do it once every 33 years, apparently. And that says a lot about the culture we have here and the community that we've built and the commitment that people have. And this is the most seamless of all transitions when you thank Kevin Callahan for his incredible work and he steps down from the day-to-day head coaching responsibility. And then we turned it over immediately to his longtime assistant, a player for him, one of the hottest, let's be honest, hottest offensive coordinators in the entire country, at least at the FCS level. I'd say at any level. Maybe at any level, right? I mean, I know FBS schools have come looking for him to be able to have him in place as dedicated as he is to the place and just move him in right away. The most seamless of all coaching transitions you can imagine happens today. Matt Harmon: Yeah. And again, press conference today, two o'clock from when we last spoke as well. Really cool day, basketball related. About a week ago, it was kind of a double header New Jersey day. The women's team played NJIT. The men's team played Princeton, both Monmouth Victories, that was last Wednesday. You and I actually spoke at halftime during the course of the men's game. I was on the TV broadcast part of it. And I think one of the things out of that is, again, in today's world, where are you going to find games? Where are you going to go? I spoke with Mitch Henderson before the game. He's the Princeton head coach and he said wholeheartedly, "I love playing King. I love the fact that we can go back and forth 40 miles to play a really good basketball game without having to travel all over the place." Patrick Leahy: We were joking at halftime, this is like old school. You get on the bus three hours ahead of time, you drive to your site, you get off the bus, you go to the locker room, you get ready to play. That's a lot different than most games now. To be able to be just an hour or whatever it is between Monmouth and Princeton and to commit, I hope, and I think both of these coaches have committed, committed to continuing to schedule this game every year, year in and year out is a really, really special thing for ... I hope both of our institutions, maybe Monmouth more than Princeton, I don't know, but it's a really special thing for us to have a chance to play one of the storied basketball programs in the country. I mean, let's be honest and to compete with them as well as we do. And did I mention win that game? Yeah. Did we mention that? Matt Harmon: Well, I did. I said actually we won both ends of it. Beat Eng IT, which is one of the best technical universities in the country and beat Princeton overall. So that- Patrick Leahy: Yeah, great stuff. Matt Harmon: Little bit of a weekend review. In terms of some highlights during the course of the year, we've touched on some of them and you had mentioned, and I know this has been such a, and I mean this in a positive way, pet project for you to bring the music world and Monmouth University together. Just across the way on campus, you've got the Center for American Music being built and the Bruce Springsteen Archives. The archives have been part of the university the last couple years, but now coming up this late spring, early summer, I know everything's still on plan. I don't want to put a date on it or even ask you to do that today in December, but that building that's going on across campus, you have talked about why that is important and that has to be a major highlight for Monmouth here in 2025. And I'm sure the opening of the building will be something we'll talk about as a highlight in 2026. Patrick Leahy: It's going to happen, knock on wood, in June of next year. I think that's safe to say. I better leave the details vague at this point until things come together. It's going to be a celebration like this campus has never seen before. Maybe, I don't know, the state's never seen before. It's going to be that big. It's a great thing for Monmouth. And I've said to the students, and I know we're going to engage our students here in a few minutes, but I said to the student government the other day, when they asked me about the Center for American Music, I said, "There's three reasons why you should care about this. " Number one, if you are in any way involved in the music industry program, which is already one of our nationally ranked programs as per Billboard Magazine, or any of the related academic fields in music or theater, this is going to take your academic experience to a whole nother level, number one. Number two, if you are studying business or nursing, but you just like American music, there will be no place in America, no university or college in America where you will get to appreciate American music more than here at Monmouth because of the Center for American Music and some of the events that we're going to be able to make available to our students once that building opens. And then I said, number three, even if you don't study music, even if you don't like American music, you should still support this project. And someone asked me, "Why would I do that? " Because this project is going to shine a spotlight on Monmouth University in ways that you cannot yet imagine raising our profile as a university, making your Monmouth University degree more valuable because people will know us increasingly around the country, around the world, they'll know who we are. So for all those reasons, this is a home run. And the best part about it, because I get this question all the time, "How much is this costing the university?" Nothing. The answer to that is nothing because the building is 100% paid for by third party donors, most of which would not have come to Monmouth otherwise. And the operation, even in its infancy, generates enough income through the programming that they do and the fundraising that we do every year, that it covers its expenses. So we get all of the value that the Center of American Music could potentially bring to Monmouth University without any of the cost. That is a home run proposition. So 2026 is going to be a very big year here at Monmouth. Matt Harmon: Can't wait to have Bruce on the podcast. Looking forward to that part. We'll see if we ... Wait, did I say that? Is that recorded now? It's now out there. Now it's out there. Now it's out there. Let's take a quick break. We'll come back. We'll talk about the year as a whole. We're going to bring our students on as well. Chloe, John, and Frank, let them engage university president Dr. Patrick Leahy. I'm faculty member Matt Harmon. This is episode four of Monmouth Matters. We're back right after this. Episode four Monmouth Matters, Matt Harmon, University President Dr. Patrick Leahy, John Grano, Chloe Gosk, and Frank Horley, our student production crew today. We've been waiting to do this towards the end of the semester. I think we timed it up perfectly, guys. We don't have Nick to deal with, so he would have probably asked really poor questions, so we're dropping him from the list today. We're going to let our students engage Dr. Lahey and talk about some things that are on their mind. These are unprompted questions. These are student questions that everyone worked pretty hard on trying to put things together. We've got it broken down into more topics than anything else. This is under the Momoth on the Move category. John, I'm going to let you kick off what we want to talk to President Leahy about. John: How's it going, President? Matt Harmon: Good, good. How are you, John? John: I'm good. I can't complain. Good. Finals week is going well. I was just going to ask if there were any student requested plans that you wanted to make happen that you've heard maybe throughout the semester. Patrick Leahy: Well, I'm going to say something and then I'm going to ask you what should be on my list. So be thinking about that. But I don't know if you're even aware that your student government association does this Hawk flight plan. Are you aware of this? John: I'm not. Patrick Leahy: So it's basically an all day planning meeting where 30 or so of the student elected representatives and about a dozen of my administrative team, including me, sit down and work together on things that we can do to improve the student experience. And they break it down into all these academic and student life and housing and food and all these kind of things. And once a year in the spring, we do that planning day and apparently the SGA gets a ton of credit for this because when they go to nationational meetings and they roll this out as a initiative here at Monmouth, the other student government associations around the country are like, "We don't have that. " And I'm proud to say they sometimes wonder whether they could get the senior administrative team at their schools to commit a whole day. So out of that comes a whole list of things from, can't the student center, can't the dining hall be open an extra hour to big things like we need additional better and more student housing on campus. I mean, you can imagine it runs the gamut. And so we chip away at that list every Every year. So it's a long way of saying it's a culture that we build. So if you'd say to me, is there one thing that the students have asked for? I don't know. I hope there's a lot of things that the students have asked for that we try to deliver on. A couple of the big projects are what I talked about, student housing. We've squarely got in our framework. And as I said, finishing the Center for American Music, that was not a request from students. What I think I've been focused on, as we just talked about with Dr. Harmon, is how could the Center for American Music impact the student experience? We've been spending a lot of time on that. So I hope there's a lot of things, but I'd be open to your thoughts about if you could do anything to change Monmouth right now to improve the student experience, what would it be? John: I've got something from an athletic perspective. Patrick Leahy: Okay. John: I feel like you can never decrease the overall aesthetic of the uniforms. I love our uniforms for all our sports, but I would love to see some new alternate uniforms for the football team. Patrick Leahy: For football? Okay. I John: Think that would be cool. Like an all black jersey, black helmets. How Patrick Leahy: Many do we have? Do you know, Matt? How many John: Combinations? Patrick Leahy: I John: Think we've got Patrick Leahy: Three or four. Three or four? John: A Patrick Leahy: Black one. John: A black one would be cool. Blackout game. Yeah, with blue stripes on the pants. Patrick Leahy: Pretty cool. The basketball teams have black uniforms. John: That's where I came from. Which are cool. Let's pair that. Patrick Leahy: I mean, that seems like an easy one until I realize there's a hundred plus players on the team and to outfit them all, it's going to cost X thousands of dollars. Matt Harmon: John, I would suggest with that, you go to the press conference today with a sign and protest. We want new unis. We want new uniforms. Patrick Leahy: I like that though. I like that. I tell you, I will tell you, and I mean this, if something like that would bring more students out, oh, we do that in a second because- John: I can guarantee it. I'll advertise. Patrick Leahy: We've got to increase the attendance from our student body at the basketball games, men and women and the football games and any other games as well. Matt Harmon: Who's up? Chloe, come on up. Chloe going to be graduating at our January commencement, by the way, Dr. Leahy. Oh my gosh, I know. Not a semester late, a semester early. Love it. Love it. Chloe: Thank you. Thank you for the plug. Good morning. And I heard your comments earlier about failing me. Please don't do that. Matt Harmon: I won't. I Patrick Leahy: Promise. Chloe: Please don't do that. I'm looking at Professor Harmon. I have them this semester. Matt Harmon: I think your grades are already included. You're good. All good. It won't be you. It won't be you. You're good. Chloe: It's okay. But my question was actually kind of similar to a point that you had just brought up President Lahey about student participation because that's something that I've noticed as someone who's very involved in this campus that not a lot of people match that same energy. So how can we kind of encourage more school engagement or just school spirit from students across campus? Patrick Leahy: That's a very good question and one that we've been thinking through for years now. I mean, when I went to college eons ago, I went to school in Washington DC and the challenge there was always, or at least we blamed the fact that we didn't have more school spirit on the fact that students would take advantage of the entire city and they weren't focused on the campus necessarily. Fast forward 30 some years, and I think the challenge we have is that students have the entire world at their fingertips, i.e., The screen time and the social media. And if you like college football, for example, you can pretty much sit at home and get every college football game that's broadcast anywhere in the country. It just distracts students from the campus experience. And so we've worked so hard to try to create the type of activities that would bring the campus together, like the football games and the basketball games. I always say, I don't care whether you like football or basketball. That's not the point. The point is that is a social function when we bring members of the Monmouth University community together to celebrate or to commiserate if it doesn't go our way. And that builds a cohesion that I think is really, really important. I mean, we have the giveaways and we do the cheer squad is there, the dance team's there, the band is there, the student athletes themselves go out around campus to encourage attendance. So I'm open to any ideas that would bring more students out, like new uniforms for the football team. I'd be so open to that because we are the size institution. We're the perfect size, in my opinion, the perfect size as an undergraduate institution. 4,000, let's say, 4,000, right? I say this to prospective students. It is large enough that even in your senior year, you'll be meeting people for the first time. And it always remains, as a professor of mine used to say, "Fresh." It's always fresh at 4,000, but it is also because it's only 4,000. When you arrive on this campus, it would only take a couple weeks before hopefully you feel at home as the same professor of mine says, "Familiar." And it's such a great combination of familiar and fresh to steal his line. We should be building community among the entire campus as well, of course, as the individual teams and the micro community that creates the fraternity and sorority life, the hundred clubs that are active, the dorms and the sense of community that they create. So I like the micro communities. I just don't want the micro communities to supplant our ability as a 4,000 institution, 4,000 student institution to create community and school spirit among all of us. And that's what we're working hard on. So I'd be open to any ideas, event programming that we should have, other things that we should be doing at not just athletic contests, but at the theatrical productions, et cetera, to try to get people to come out because it's an important part of the experience when you come to a place like Monmouth. Matt Harmon: I know this is our student time, but as you're talking, I always think of the basketball arena and I don't know that there's an answer to this. I remember when that building first opened up, you're going back several years now, there used to be some pretty fun, engaging concerts that people would roll through. And I don't feel like we've had many of those over time. And thinking of find the right band and have it be more student centered than more, hey, adult people coming to campus, that would be one. And I'm sure it's not as easy as just calling somebody and saying, "Hey, do you want to play?" I know there's a lot that goes into it, but thinking of Center for American Music, thinking of the music industry program, we should in some ways be a hotbed for concerts to roll through. Patrick Leahy: And I'm prepared to say that we will be because of the Center for American Music. We just haven't been able to quite to this point because some of the events that we do there are fundraising events in order to pay for the center, get it off the ground. Of course, I'm not going to ask our students to pay to come to those events, but we have all kinds of programming in mind that will, as I said, will make having the Center for American Music on this campus a huge residual benefit to the students at large. And we'll use Ocean First, we'll use Pollock. There's a small sound stage in the new building, but mostly we'll use Pollock and Ocean First. Love Matt Harmon: It. Chloe, great question. John, let's go back to you on next topic of choice. John: Gotcha. I was going to ask about maybe things that we think or you think that you do really well or the school does really well that you think doesn't get noticed by students. Patrick Leahy: Doesn't get noticed by students. John: Yeah. So maybe something during the day-to-day that you appreciate and maybe the faculty and staff appreciate that maybe the student wouldn't understand or just isn't paying attention to. Patrick Leahy: Well, I'll talk for a little bit here. I mean, I mean, I hope you understand this and maybe you do, but the amount of time and effort that, for example, our facilities teams, this team puts into maintaining the campus. I'm not saying that, John, you couldn't find a building that needs some deferred maintenance. We're constantly working on that, but the care that they put into making sure that the flower beds are properly maintained and that the grass is properly cut and that the leaves are cleared and all so that you can feel a sense of pride in the campus. I mean, I hope there's a recognition among our student body of the effort that they put into it. I hope it's clear to you the commitment of our faculty. I mean, I'm sitting here with one of our stars, Dr. Harmon, and the commitment that he has to students not only in the classroom, but outside of the classroom, I hope that kind of stuff's apparent. What I think isn't as apparent to you is maybe the way in which my colleagues, our colleagues maintain the campus, certainly lost on you is probably the amount of time and effort like our advancement team spends trying to raise money so that we can invest it in the campus and into the faculty. Those are things that happen day in and day out. Those good colleagues are ... Again, it's a phrase I always use. Those good colleagues of ours that work in advancement, for example, advancement or government and community relations or special events or not to mention finance, all these things that happen behind the scenes, they're dedicating their lives to this institution. They just don't have a lot of interaction day to day with the students, but that shouldn't suggest that they're any less committed to trying to create an environment where you guys can be successful. So all that administrative work happens sort of behind the scenes that I don't expect you to think about because it's not part of your day-to-day experience here, but I hope every once in a while, like in a situation like this, gives me a chance to shout them out and hopefully there's a recognition among all of you students that there's a lot of people that work behind the scenes just so that you can have the interaction with Dr. Harmon the way that you do in the classroom. Matt Harmon: Follow-up question to that on my end, which would be, you talked about the president's award that you just gave to Mary Ann Hess. How would you say somebody like that for the general student, even though you said, "Well, you walk past this building, you walk past the soccer field, her name's on it, clearly it's really important to Monmouth to get maybe the knowledge base for the general student to know people like that that have such an impact on the campus and the campus Patrick Leahy: Community." I mean, the easiest way is to insist that we put her name on something because a lot of donors give us the money to support the building of a new residence hall or the building of a new athletics field, as in the case of the Hess family, but we sort of had to insist that we put their name on it. That wasn't what drove their philanthropy. We insisted we put their name on it. And one of the reasons we often insist, of course, if a donor says, "No, no way, no how I want to be anonymous," of course we would respect that, but we try to insist that you should be comfortable putting your name on it because we want our students to realize that there are people out there like Maryanne Hess and so many others who are dedicating their hard earned money to making this place a better place. And we want to recognize them so that our students can increasingly appreciate that there are all those people out there that are helping to support what they do. Marianne Hess in particular is as focused on the student experience as any other single board member that we have. Always asking, what does this decision or this investment or whatever, what does this mean for the student experience at Monmouth? And I really appreciate that. And because of that in part, I want to make sure her name is embedded in the lexicon of the university. Matt Harmon: Frank, you are up. I'm going to kind of change the order of what we've got going on here. The question that you are probably going to ask, I want you to hold until the end. That's going to be the last question. We're going to transition though into some athletic related questions. And I loved some of these because I think they are super, super creative. So Frank, if you can bring us into Hawks on the field of play, and I'm dying to get the answer to this question that's coming up. Frank: First off, I want to start by saying those black jerseys would be a really sick idea. Matt Harmon: Okay. Frank: I would be- 20 in favor of the black jerseys. Patrick Leahy: I'm going to say something today at the press Frank: Conference. Yeah, I would get totally behind that. So my first question that's athletics related, we talked about it already, Coach Cal announcing he's stepping away from head coaching after I think 33 years. Pretty crazy. But do you have like any personal message for him that you want to say on air right now? Patrick Leahy: Yeah. I mean, thank you. He just embodies everything that is right about college athletics and he's been doing it year in and year out for 33 years and he's just an amazing figure in the history of Monmouth University and I'm so proud of the run. He had 197 wins, which I think is the most of any division one. Matt Harmon: FCS Patrick Leahy: Coach. FCS coach in the country. So I say thank you. I'm not as sentimental as I might otherwise be, because he is going to stick around for a year and advise our athletic director on this transition and other things happening in athletics. So we'll have his good company for a little while longer, but to not have him as our head football coach is a major change in the history of this institution. So I say to him simply thank you. Frank: Yeah. I also have another question for you. This one's more of a fun question. So let's say hypothetically, you had the ability to have any mama sports team play against any other college in any sport. It can be like football, basketball, lacrosse, field hockey. What university would you want Monmouth to face? Patrick Leahy: I mean, that's probably a pretty easy one. I would love for our men's basketball team to go down to Georgetown, my alma mater, and to beat them the way that has happened in our history. I mean, it was before I arrived, but it happened what, 10 years ago or so, and that's why I think they're ducking us right now is because it's happened before. But I've had the great fortune. Our men's basketball team played one of my alma maters, University of Pennsylvania a couple years ago in a tournament. And one of my closest friends on earth was the head coach at Penn. So what a fun thing for me. Now, unfortunately, we lost that game. It was very close, but we lost it in the end. So I was happy for my friend and disappointed for me, but it would be a real treat to have the men's and women's teams go down and play Georgetown. Our football team, you might remember, hosted Georgetown two or three years ago, and I think we won 35 to seven. Matt Harmon: Put a beating on them. Put a beating on them. Almost 10 years to the day, by the way, when the men's basketball team beat Georgetown December 15th, 2015, 83, 68. We got to work on that. Patrick Leahy: Yeah. Yeah. And I think we can get that game. I mean, I think King knows that that would be a fun game for me. And I think he knows Ed Cooley, who's the ... Right. I have that right, Ed Cooley, right? He's the head coach at Georgetown. So I'm hopeful that we'll be able to put that game together at some point. Wouldn't it be nice though to meet in the tournament someday? It'd be great. Yeah. John: So I've got one more fun hypothetical for you. If you could be an athlete for any Momot sports team, which one would it be and why? Patrick Leahy: I mean, I guess you're talking to the president, so I'd want to be the quarterback on the football team. John: Pretty sweet. Patrick Leahy: Right? John: In the Black jerseys? Patrick Leahy: In the Black John: Jerseys. Patrick Leahy: In the Black jerseys, handing the ball off as quickly as possible before I get killed by a defensive player. But I played football from the time I was seven to the time I was 18 every year. And some of that time I was the quarterback and I always envisioned being the quarterback. And as soon as I went to high school, they moved me to the end position, the tight end and the split end position. I was slow. Could you catch? I was slow, not very strong. So it's quite a resume you're building right now for yourself. Not very big, but I like to say I'd like to think I had a pretty good pair of hands and I wasn't afraid to go across the middle. Matt Harmon: Okay. Patrick Leahy: And even in high school football, if you're not afraid to have a tall, lanky guy who's not very fast, not very strong, not very big, go across the middle and hold on often. Pretty good chance. Matt Harmon: If you're slow and brave, they'll forget about you at one point. He's never even going to make it from one hash mark to the next. Don't worry about him. Patrick Leahy: Well, I'll tell you, just if I may quickly, my high school football coach, God rest his soul, just passed away last week. And I learned so many lessons from him. Like all of the people who played for Coach Callahan over the years learned from him, but so many lessons I learned from Coach Joe Brun. But one of the things I was reminiscing about was I remember vividly one day when we were watching film and the quarterback threw a perfect pass to me and I dropped it and he said, "What's the matter, Lahey? Did it hit you in a bad place, your hands?" I said, "I got it. I got it. " Oops, Matt Harmon: Sorry about that, coach. Transition. As we mentioned, Chloe Gosk, who is going to graduate after the semester and head off into the workforce. She has been a superstar at this university involved with so many things here in the communication department, university worldwide. Would love to ask, I think President Lehe some advice for a recent graduate coming Chloe: Up. Yes. So for someone who's about to graduate, Professor Harmon kind of worded it perfectly. So what would you just say best career advice that you could offer for someone who's about to leave Mom University or just graduate college in general? Patrick Leahy: There's so many things I could offer. You might hear this at commencement, Chloe, so I'm giving you maybe a little preview, but something that's always motivated me as a quote from an individual who was a dissident playwright in the Czech Republic during the Soviet occupation. In fact, he mounted the campaign to kick the Soviets out of then Czechoslovakia. And he became, this playwright became the first freely elected president of the Czech Republic. His name was Vasov Havel for those of you who follow your history, but he said something. They asked him one time like, "How do you deal with the challenges that you faced in your life?" And he said this, he said, "I just carry hope in my heart." Hope is not a feeling of certainty that everything ends well. Hope is a feeling that my life and my work have meaning. And so I always say to students, "This is what I wish for you more than anything is do not stop until you find work and/or a life that you've designed that brings you meaning because you spend a lot of time working, you're going to have a fascinating 50 year career ahead of you. Let's be honest. I mean, the next 50 years are going to be incredible, both exciting and challenging. Don't stop until you find work that brings you meaning, and that's my advice to you. Maybe I say that with such comfort because I've discovered in my life work that is incredibly meaningful to me, but it doesn't have to be saving this or working in a nonprofit or whatever. Just work that you find meaningful and that will sustain you through tough times. And it's inevitable that you'll go through tough times in your life professionally and personally, and ultimately be very satisfying for you. So my advice is kind of simple, like make sure you find work that is meaningful for you. And another thing I say to the parents, this is work that only you students and you students alone can identify. Do not let parents and friends and aunts and uncles and neighbors tell you what you should do with your life. After all, it is your life. So you find work that is meaningful for you and you will help to build the life that you always dreamed of. So that's my advice for you. Chloe: Thank you. Appreciate that. Patrick Leahy: Very Matt Harmon: Simple. Patrick Leahy: You don't have Matt Harmon: To go to graduation now. You just heard it. You heard the speech. Chloe: I got the speech. Matt Harmon: I'll mail you the Patrick Leahy: Diploma. Chloe: Yeah. Can I get that right now, actually? Matt Harmon: Before grades are in? Patrick Leahy: Before Matt Harmon: My finals? Patrick Leahy: Can I add one more thing? Yeah, of course. I said I had so many. That was a philosophical one. There's a very practical one that I'd like to share with you as well, because this was very eye-opening to me when I was at one of my previous institutions and I had a big time CEO of a major Fortune 100 or 200 company in my class. And I asked him, big time CEO, I asked him, What one piece of advice do you have for our ... What one piece of professional advice do you have for our students as they prepare to graduate? Same question generally. And what he said surprised me. He said," Be the kind of person that other people want to work with. "And I said," Kip, of all the things that you could tell our students, that's it? "He said," In an organization of any kind, you want to be the kind of person that everybody wants to work with. "And he said," I have seen so many promising careers derailed because they were not good in teams, they were not collaborative with other people, they were not sympathetic to other people. They didn't do their part. "He's like, " That's my piece of advice for you. "And I thought," Oh my gosh, talk about a practical, hard hitting piece of advice, be the kind of person that everybody wants to work with. "That's a pretty straightforward directive, I think. Chloe: Pretty well said. Yeah, I agree. Thank you so much. Matt Harmon: Well said with a professor who loves doing group presentations at the end of a semester. Frank, I'm going to let you get that question in last one. We're actually going overtime today. This is so much fun having our students be able to engage with our university president. Bring us home with this last one. Frank: Yeah, this is kind of just like a general question. This can apply to literally anything on this campus, res life, athletics, facilities, whatever. But if there was one thing that you can improve at this university right now, what would it be and why? Patrick Leahy: I mean, I think my answer would be encompass all of those, which is I want to improve the reputation of this university so that all of you students, when you graduate, your degree adds value throughout the course of your lifetime because Monmouth continues to grow and its reputation expands and the prestige in the most positive way continues to grow. That's what we're working on right now is how do we make sure that Monmouth continues to build its positive reputation? One way to do that, of course, Frank, is to improve the student life experience and to improve the academic experience so that our retention and graduation rates go up and to raise more money so that we can improve the campus even more. There's all these things that we could do, but the bottom line is all that rolls up to how do we make Monmouth, how do we take our place among the finest institutions in the country per our reputation? And so that's what I'm hoping we can continue to improve more than anything, maybe because it encompasses so much. Matt Harmon: I think we have the makings of a good January episode where you and I, President Leahy, can maybe ask these guys some questions. We're going to hold that just because we're running a little bit over time. We got some final exams that people have to get to. We've got some meetings that people got to get to. Christmas plans, holiday plans, Patrick Leahy: Anything fun? Just there'll be eight of us together, the six members of my family, my son-in-law, and a pretty serious boyfriend of one of my daughters. So there's just the eight of us together for Christmas this year. Does that person get ... Is there like a Matt Harmon: Screening process that goes on? Patrick Leahy: Yeah, it's a very- Has he Matt Harmon: Passed already? Patrick Leahy: He's working on it. Still working through it. My son-in-law had to live with us for four months during COVID. You might recall. He came to the Daugherty House and lived with us. And that was a unique vetting process that we had in the Lahey family. He passed with flying colors. Anybody that Matt Harmon: Could live in a closet Patrick Leahy: Does okay. We allowed that to go on. Exactly. He had to live in the first floor closet and he did it very well. And it was a great thing. I'm joking, of course, but it's a unique ... We say it's a unique vetting ritual in our family. So we'll put the newest one through a similar ritual. Real tree Matt Harmon: Or artificial? Patrick Leahy: Real. Real. Yeah. Okay. Matt Harmon: What's on the president's Christmas list? Patrick Leahy: Not much this year. I always use it as an opportunity to take stock of how grateful I am for all the blessings in my life. And I just can't imagine. I have an incredible wife of 30 years, four amazing kids now, a fifth son-in-law. I have a job that I love that I just mentioned to Chloe, brings me incredible meaning. My health is good. I mean, what else is there? I mean, I don't need anything under the tree because I have everything I need around that tree and that's how I feel this holiday season. Matt Harmon: Love it. Guys, great job. Chloe, John, Frank, I'd say Nick, but he blew us off for the day, but his work was obviously appreciated all during the course of the semester. We will continue this during the course of the spring semester once a month live here on WMCX. Monmouth Matters with an inside perspective from University President Dr. Patrick Lahey. President Leahy, I'll see you later on today at the press conference for Kevin and Jeff as the transition of the football program. Thank you so much for your time all during the course of this semester and happy holidays to you and your family. Patrick Leahy: And you too, Matt. I've really enjoyed this new model that we have where the students are involved right here in the studio. I hope we can continue this. It's a ton of fun for me. And of course, how many times have we done this? 50 times or something? Oh, we're Matt Harmon: Over that, Patrick Leahy: I think. Over 50 times that we've been together, Matt, and it's a really important part of my experience here at Mama. So I thank you for your continued energy. Matt Harmon: To our entire campus community, a happy holiday season. We look forward to continuing Monmouth Matters the beginning of the spring semester 2026. Happy holidays, happy new year. Enjoy the rest of the month of December. We'll see you in January. Our thanks again to our student production crew, university president, Dr. Patrick Leahy, those in the marketing comm department that come over and grab some social media clips for us, Nick and Matt, who have done amazing work all during the course of the semester. WMCX advisor, Aaron Ferguson, his general manager, Luke, who have been so great allowing us to block out some time each and every month to do this. Some faculty member Matt Harmon, happy holiday season. We'll see you in January.